Inside Baseball: Lessons for Phillies' Amaro: Don't be timid

These last few weeks haven't been kind to Ruben Amaro Jr.

The Roy Oswalt deal appears dead. The shuffling of pitchers back and forth between here and the minor leagues can most charitably be described as desperate. The looming trade the general manager hinted about last week never materialized. And as criticism of Cliff Lee's departure has grown more strident, Amaro has grown testier.

An unscientific philly.com poll last week found that, among the respondents, at least, the Phillies' GM gets the overwhelming share of blame for his team's sorry summer.

It's understandable. Philadelphians have grown fond of Charlie Manuel. They love his players. And with the team spending an estimated $139 million on salaries this season, they can't gripe anymore about Dave Montgomery and his fellow owners being cheap.

So, angry and frustrated over the Phillies' performance these last two months, they've turned in the only the direction available, toward the GM's office.

That's why these last few days before Saturday's trade deadline are so important for Amaro. With the right deal, he can save not just this puzzling Phillies season but also his own reputation.

Will he find another Cliff Lee? Or another Travis Lee?

Will he sacrifice a diamond in the rough (Domonic Brown)? Or a guy who's been having a rough time on the diamond (Jayson Werth)?

Will he bring to mind the Pope? Or just another dope?

For guidance, Amaro might want to look back on the Phils' biggest trade-deadline transactions over the last 35 years.

If he examines what arguably were the eight most significant - the "buyer's" trades that brought in Bake McBride, Dick Ruthven, Kyle Lohse, Joe Blanton, and Lee, and the "seller's" moves that dispatched Curt Schilling, Scott Rolen, and Bobby Abreu - he might uncover some surprisingly helpful tips:

1. Just do it!

Any kind of significant move, whether unloading a big name or importing one, is likely to help. Following seven of the previously noted eight big deadline deals, the Phils went on to have winning second-half records. The 2006 Phils responded to Abreu's departure by going 36-23 the rest of the way. The 1978 team reacted to Ruthven's arrival by going 60-46 (The deadline then was June 15; it wasn't moved to July 31 until 1986.) The only case in which improvement didn't follow was in 2000, when Terry Francona's last club went 21-42 after sending the unhappy Schilling to Arizona for Travis "Zombie" Lee, Vicente Padilla, Nelson Figueroa, and Omar Daal.

2. Look beyond pitching